Aircraft such as commercial airliners typically include control surfaces or devices mounted on the wings to improve the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft. Such control surfaces include wing leading edge devices and wing trailing edge devices which may be extended and/or deflected during different phases of flight to alter the lift and/or drag characteristics of the wings. For example, commercial airliners typically include leading edge slats and trailing edge flaps which may be extended during takeoff, approach, landing, and/or during other flight phases to increase the area and camber of the wings to increase the wing lift characteristics.
Aircraft regulatory bodies such as the Federal Aviation Administration require that aircraft meet minimum performance standards during different phases of flight and during emergency situations. For an aircraft traveling at a cruising altitude, rapid decompression of the cabin of an aircraft is a type of emergency situation requiring immediate and rapid descent, typically referred to as an emergency descent, of the aircraft from a relatively high cruising altitude to a lower safe altitude. The time period during which the aircraft must descend to the lower safe altitude is dictated by Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 25.841 which specifies cabin pressurization requirements for aircraft certification. For example, FAR 25.841(a)(2) specifies that an aircraft must be designed such that occupants will not be exposed to a cabin pressure altitude that exceeds the following after decompression from any failure condition not shown to be extremely improbable: 25,000 feet for more than two (2) minutes, or 40,000 feet for any duration.
Typically, during an emergency descent, the engine throttles may be reduced to idle and the nose of the aircraft may be pitched over so that the aircraft may descend at its maximum operating speed until reaching the lower altitude. To meet the requirements of FAR 25.841, aircraft traditionally deploy existing spoilers on the wings to reduce wing lift and increase drag to maximize the rate of descent. Deployment of the spoilers in conventional aircraft may be insufficient to achieve a desired and/or required (e.g., as per the requirements of FAR 25.841) descent rate, which may necessitate an increase in the surface area of the spoilers and/or an increase in spoiler deflections. An increase in the surface area or deflection angle of the spoilers may result in an increase in the weight of the aircraft and/or an increase in spoiler actuation capacity which may lead to a sub-optimal wing configuration, or may cause excessive aerodynamic/structure buffet.